32 everybody could be proud of. . . . We do not want sympathy; we want recog- nition of the fact that the prestige of the Grand Fleet stood so high that it was sufficient to cause the enemy to surren- der without striking a blow... . We trust your departure is only temporary and that the interèhange of squadrons from the two great fleets of the Anglo- Saxon race may be repeated." The New York, flying a fifty-foot- long homeward-bound pennant bear- ing the legend "In God We Trust, New York or Bust," headed westward soon after Admiral Beatty's visit. She arrived with the squadron off Staten Is- land on Christmas Day, and the men expected to be ashore by nightfall. Sec- retary Daniels, however, wanted to re- view the entire squadron, so the sailors stayed aboard untIl the next day, when Daniels and his Assistant Secretary, Franklin D Roosevelt, watched the ships pass in review off Bedloe's Island. Once the crews got ashore, the cele- brating lasted well into January. B y the mid-twenties, the New York was regarded as middle-aged, as battleships go, and in the second rank of fighting ships. A little over two years after being commissioned in 1 914, she had been outmoded by the Nevada, Ok- lahoma, Arizona, and Pennsylvania, but she kept her style, and she was fitted as a flagship. The Navy used to fit only a few of its warships as flagships, and those that have been so equipped stand a good chance of retaining their prestige for a long time. Such a ship has, in addition to quarters for her own .officers and men, suÌtes and offices for an admiral and his staff, and she must dress the part. The New York and the rest of the fleet set out in 1919 for the Pacific. Peãple on the West Coast were exceedingly pleased to see almost the en tire Navy in their ocean, and the New York was fêted all the way from southern California to the State of Washington. By then, the crew of the New York consisted of a nucleus of old profession- als and a group of new young men who wanted to see the world. She was under the command of Captain William V. Pratt, who today, as a retired admiral, writes for Newsweek. Both AdmIral Pratt and Rear Admiral Charles F. Hughes, who commanded the New York for a while, eventually became Chief of Naval Operations, the highest job in the Navy; the New Yark is the only ship that has had two skippers who reached this height. Under Pratt, the New York won the fleet football trophy and furnished the bulk of an all-fleet football team which defeated an Army team 124-0 on Armistice Day, 1920, at Pasadena. As the years went on, the New Mexico, the Mississippi, the Idaho, and then the Big Five-the Tennessee, Colorado, California, Maryland, and West Virginia-were commissioned, and the New York went even lower on the list of American fighting ships. In this period of her life she deve]- oped some of the traits which made men caB her the Old Lady. She stayed in the Pacific for a long time, and the crew found it to their liking. Even the new seamen thought of themselves as old, tough sailors, and their officers were wise enough to let them think so. The men referred to their ship not only as the Old Lady bU,t, with equal senti- mentality, as an old pig-iron sink, and went in for tattooing, even adopting, without apology, the blue dragon on the shoulder which before then had been the mark only of men on the China Station. Tailormades became the fashion on the New York for shore liberty and even for inspections. The jumpers of these uni- forms had trim, narrow collars instead of the regulation broad ones, and trousers flared ex- travagantly at the bottom. The jumpers were long and tight, and the oxfords were of paten t leather. . The sailors of the Old Lady were as natty as they come, and the ad ven turous girls who worked the dance halls on Market Street in San Francisco, Main Street in Los Angeles, and Water Street in San Diego watched for their arrival. The racket jobs on board-laundrymen, pressers, tailors, barbers, canteen yeo- Inen-were sold for hundreds of dollars, and money won in crap games kept many a sailor off extra duty. The men got out of work when they could, and yet they would spend their own money for paint and brightwork polish for their quarters. The Old Lady was the most stylish ship, and her Inen the most trim and pugna- cious, in the Pacific. They made themselves at home in Honolulu, Panama, Portland, Bremerton, and Seattle, and talked big and fought weB with the men of other ShIpS. In October, 1926, the New 1Z Cf[ç,ltJßUJ.,